In February of 2011, Google made an adjustment to the computerized algorithm it uses to evaluate and rank websites. It was more like the tweak heard ’round the world. It has since become known as the “Panda” update, named for one of the Google employees who worked on the project. Panda has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and PC Magazine. It even has its own Wikipedia page.
So why all the headlines? What makes this algorithm change different from the hundreds that have preceded it? For one thing, it can affect your entire website — for better or worse. Here’s what Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land had to say about it:
“Panda is a filter that Google has designed to spot what it believes are low-quality pages. Have too many low-quality pages, and Panda effectively flags your entire site.”
As a result, many webmasters are scrambling to add new content to their websites. Some have suffered a tremendous drop in Google traffic and rankings, as a direct result of Panda. Others are being proactive, lest they fall victim to a future version of the dreaded filter.
This brings us to the focus of our tutorial — creating quality content. If you want to achieve top Google rankings in the post-Panda world, you must fill your website with quality content. But therein lies the challenge. You can’t just pull useful and original content out of thin air. And if you take shortcuts, you could suffer the same fate as these people.
- If you publish a bunch of “quick tips,” puff pieces and other shallow content, you could be slammed by the Panda.
- If you copy a lot of content from other websites, you could be slammed by the Panda.
- If you outsource your writing to content “factories” and bottom-bidding SEO firms … well, you get the idea.
So what’s a publisher to do? How do you grow your website with Panda-friendly content? We have some helpful tips to get you started.
Your first priority is creating quality content for your website. Every page on your site must offer value in some way. It must be able to stand on its own. Within that framework, you should also strive for content volume.
Here are ten tips for growing your site with quality content:
|
- You could create an article library that relates to your industry or niche. There is no limit to how much website content you could create with this strategy. Every product, service, or new development within your industry could warrant an article of its own.
- You could publish news on a daily or weekly basis that caters to your specific audience. See the next item below for some news-gathering tips.
- Set up some Google Alerts for relevant topics. This is good for topical research in general, and it also helps you create new content for your website. Let’s say I work in the robotic widget industry. I could set up a Google Alert for “robotic widget” and choose the “news” setting as my search parameter. Then, whenever the Google crawler encounters a press release or news story relating to robotic widgets, I’ll be notified by email. It gives me an automated stream of topics I can write about.
- You could develop a Q&A section of your website, where each question gets a full-page response. You could even place a form on your website to invite your readers to ask questions. Talk about an endless source of content ideas!
- If you can’t solicit questions from your readers for some reason, you could use the Keyword Questions tool offered by WordTracker. Create a list of questions relating to your industry, and you’ve got a list of things you can write about. Best of all, it will help your intended readers by answering their questions.
- Read magazines, books and blogs related to your field. You should be doing this anyway, for the sake of professional development. It will also help you when creating new content for your website. You can’t just write about yourself and your company all the time. There’s a time and place for this, sure. But you also have to use a wider lens once in a while, by writing about your industry as a whole.
- Share your personal views on your subject matter. This is an excellent strategy for those in a leadership role, such as the CEO of a company. What’s on your mind? How do you feel about recent developments in your field? Share these thoughts with your readers, like the editorial section of a newspaper. Here’s a light-hearted example from a blogger with the Harvard Business Review.
- Publish your own original research. Do you have website traffic already? If so, you could use your visitors as a survey group. Use a program like SurveyMonkey to conduct a survey on your website. Focus on a timely topic related to your industry. Publish the survey results, along with some eye-catching charts or graphs. Add your own thoughts about the results. You’ve just created some interesting new content for your website.
- Conduct an interview with an expert from your industry, or from a related field. Publish the interview onto your blog or website. You can send the interview questions by email, and then copy / paste onto your site. It adds value to your website. It gives your readers some additional insight into the subject. And it gives the expert some free publicity. Everybody wins. Interviews are also a great way to attract links from other publishers.
- Conduct a critical analysis of something within your industry or niche, and publish the results on your website. Or create a meta-analysis, a compilation of existing research. Your readers will appreciate the insightful website content, which is most important. It will also help you stay on the good side of the Panda. Here’s a line from the official Panda questionnaire: “Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?”
|
What do all of strategies have in common? For one thing, they all seek to engage the reader in some way. This is the key to Internet marketing success, Panda or no Panda. You have to engage your readers with useful content if you want them to stick around. This is the first step to onsite conversions (turning readers into customers).
These strategies will also help you stay on the good side of the Panda. Through all of these techniques, you’ll be creating useful website content that helps people achieve a certain goal. This is the kind of content that attracts links from other publishers. This is the kind of content that keeps people on your site longer. This is the kind of content that helps you survive — and thrive — in the post-Panda world.
